Schools request 5.5 percent increase

WEST BOYLSTON – It took only a few minutes for the School Committee to hold its budget hearing last week, but there was a lot of information for people to digest.

The projected school budget for next year is pegged at $9.45 million, a 5.5 percent hike over this year's figure.

Superintendent of Schools Elizabeth Schaper last Wednesday detailed some of the key areas where the increases are most acute as the schools prepare a budget to educate the estimated 965 students in the West Boylston schools next year.

Increases in teacher salaries will add $347,254 to the budget next year, up 4.5 percent.

Special education out-of-district tuitions will add $140,698, a 36.5 percent jump, with transportation for those students adding an additional $68,760, up 31.9 percent.

The totals add up to more than the $493,341 hike in the overall budget.

“We made reductions in our own needs,” to counteract increases, Schaper said.

The budget shows several areas of increases, while others show decreases.

The overall salaries and wages increase comes to 4.5 percent, while the special education budget rises by 19.2 percent. The special education increase comes despite cutting instructional materials by a total of $72,114, a 36.5 percent reduction. Schaper said that was because materials were more appropriately contained in the budget lines for the individual schools.

The increase for system-wide special education costs was up 17.1 percent, but that final figure was $12,733, a fraction of the other elements of the special education program, emphasizing the impact of costs the schools can't control.

Schaper said the impact of special education was increased by a new rule of cost sharing.

There were five out-of-district special education students last year from the middle/high school. Next year, two additional students at the middle/high school and one at the elementary school will require out of district services.

The new law requires that, if a student has one of his or her parents living in West Boylston, the town must share in the costs of that child's education, even if the child lives in another town.

West Boylston must now share the cost, over which the town has no control, with the town in which the child lives.

“Sometimes we have no idea before we are assigned responsibility for the costs,” Schaper said.

Schaper said there were no situations in which West Boylston could benefit from the cost of a child in an out-of-district setting being shared with another town.

Schaper said the schools will once again use school choice money to cover some costs, such as utilities and transportation. However, less money is available in that account this year, reducing that as a means of paying for some bills. That money, since it does not come from tax revenue, is not reflected in the operating budget. The total budget, including utilities covered by school choice, comes to $10,050,033, up $477,935 over last year.

The School Committee last week voted to allow school choice students into town schools: Up to eight third graders, four in fourth grade and an open-ended option for the middle/high school, where there are currently 501 students, less than the 617 estimated maximum that have been in the school. Schaper said about 36 students have sought to come to town as choice students.

One key reduction in the budget comes from the Virtual High School (VHS) offerings.

“We made a purposeful choice to reduce VHS,” Schaper said.

She said the 25 seats available for the coming year will be in line with other districts, including those larger than West Boylston. The number of seats available for VHS classes already dropped from 125 to 75 last year. Even at 25, over one-third of the school's seniors could participate in the online classes, she said.

Schaper said there has been an “over reliance” on VHS that sometimes leads to lower enrollment in regular classes. She said a “blended” classroom was more effective than a virtual class alone and said the schools preferred their own teachers, whereas VHS had no quality controls.

“An analysis of VHS classes showed most were less challenging than courses here,” she said. In addition, she said, the cost of VHS classes was three times that of a student in the regular classes.

The School Committee also approaved a new contract with the district's teachers. The yearly percentage increases for cost-of-living equal 1 percent, retroactive for the current year, which began in July, and 2 percent over the next three years. See more details on the new contract in next week's Banner.

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